The sponge is genoise rather than a butter cake: whipped whole egg, folded flour, and nothing to hold it up but air. It stales faster, which is why we will not bake it the day before.
The buttercream is Swiss meringue — egg white and sugar cooked to 65°C, whipped cold, then butter beaten in — and it takes forty minutes to make three kilograms of it. American buttercream takes four and tastes like it.
The gold is 23 carat, edible, and applied with a brush after the cake is chilled. It is a decoration and it is honest about being one.
Camille R. (verified owner) –
Ordered on the Tuesday for the Saturday and it was ready at nine. The vanilla is real vanilla — you can see it and you can taste the difference. The inscription was piped better than I could have hoped.